Most of our major life decisions are based on or are tied into money. Deciding on pre-retirement is no different. All the questions that will need answering at retirement time will also need to be addressed if you decide to entertain the idea of pre-retirement. How much have I saved? How much will I need? How long will it last? Etc. Every situation is different of course but the questions will be basically the same. If you do consider pre-retirement though, you should be well prepared for full retirement and not have to answer these questions again.

The best resource you to help with this part is a financial advisor. Not everyone fully understands all aspects of investing. Whether this is a professional associated with a financial institution or a private firm use their knowledge and services to develop a thorough assessment of your financial standing. I receive a pile of paper mail from mine every year and the only thing I typically can figure out is I’m not broke, that’s it. I usually have to call him a couple times a year to ask two basic questions, how much did I have at the beginning of the year and how much do I have now. Going through, on average, a half dozen monthly statements, every month, tries my patience. And yes, I know I can go electronic and will follow up with that in the future.

My meeting with him involved detailed projections of monthly retirement earnings starting at 55, 60, and 65 years. At ages 60 and 65 extra monthly income is added due to eligibility for programs such as government pension and old age security.

If I wanted to wait until 60 for full retirement and benefits, projected monthly income would be more than adequate for 25 years. That sounds pretty good especially since reaching 85 seems such a stretch goal to me. ????

SO, what to do for 10 years? This is when I thought something like a pre-retirement life would be great. Now, how do I live that life and at the same time minimize the impact on my savings/investments? I could use all my savings to keep up with expenses and pay bills, mortgage, etc. This would have a negative effect on my income when it came time to be fully retired.

As stated previously, even though I wasn’t very keen on working against another schedule for another for almost 10 years I still wanted to do something. I’m sure that most people are like me and would need to do something on a steady basis to keep a mental equilibrium. This lead to the decision to make a commitment to working for myself, preferably from home, and what I would need to accomplish this. What skills did I already have? Were they marketable? What skills would I like to learn? How do I learn those skills? This skills inventory and planning was the next step to determine if I wanted to commit to my pre-retirement life.